Late Dawnings
by Rose Philosopher
Summary: Life goes on for the flock in a mad mix of romantic sparring, the day-to-day violence between various species, Nudge's Spring Fashion Shows, and Max's recurring inability to stay out of denial. FAX duh . R&R!
1. Watching the Moon

Maximum Ride was alone.

Not accidentally, not in a way that should cause any panic, but she was alone, reveling in her isolation, staring at the way the pine trees, outlined by a waning silver moon, threw charcoal shadows onto the water of the lake. The moonlight splintered off her hair, swallowed in the dark blonde locks, making them shimmer dully, though it did not emerge again.

She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, one arm draped around them, the other hanging loosely down so that her fingers just barely brushed the surface of the water. Her toes dipped in and out of it, her eyes following the movement as her chin rested on her knees, her mind wandering...

Nudge, barely turned thirteen, had somehow acquired a disturbing designing obsession. With Ella as a sowing guide (apparently they taught design at her high-school for creative credits), she had taken to stitching up elaborate outfits suited for the flock because (in the thirteen-year-old's words) normal human clothes just didn't do the job.

After Max having bluntly rejected Nudge's first few attempts (they had ruffles and lace on them…and as far as Max was concerned, ruffles did not belong on anything but dresses, which she'd never wear, and lace did not belong anywhere at all), she'd been shocked to receive Nudge's first sensible creation; it was like a cross between overalls and a very revealing t-shirt. The whole thing was made of jeans-fabric, but the inside was cotton, so that it wasn't necessary to wear a shirt underneath for comfort. The bottom was like a pair of overalls; basically just pants. However, from the hip up, it was a completely backless, comfortably tight t-shirt, which had straps buttoned together just under her neck on her back, and left the rest of her back bare. The point of the whole thing was mainly to cover up what needed to be cover up, but keep her wings and all the corresponding muscles in her back completely free of obstruction. Because the whole outfit was skin-fit, it caught little to no wind and had brought up her flight speed by at least 5mph.

After putting it on and modeling it for Nudge, Max had reluctantly agreed that it was genius, and asked Nudge, with an approving smile adorning her lips, if she could maybe fashion two more outfits for different weather conditions. Nudge had nearly combusted with pride.

Now, Max sat in her new outfit on the shore of the lake and tried to convince herself that school really _was _something the flock shouldn't to deal with, even if it taught useful things like fashion designing.

A strong buffet of air pulled her out of her thoughts, and she leaped to her feet, just in time to watch Fang raise himself out of a crouch from landing just behind her on the bank of the lake.

"Oh, it's you." She mumbled, blushing at the tenseness in her body (a buffet of air wasn't really a threat these days, but it was hard to let go of the old reflexes) and folded herself back into her sitting position, staring across the water.

He sat next to her, comfortably slouched, his elbows on his knees and his hands hanging between them. Nudge liked to call it the bad-ass movie star slouch, after which she had insisted on making him a pair of extremely baggy pants and a hoodie. He had graciously accepted the hoodie (Nudge had lined it with 

sheep skin and fleece, so it actually had a point besides creating a stereotypical gangsta look), but straight out refused to even touch the pants.

For a moment, they didn't say anything. Max refused to look at him, Fang only waited for her to speak.

Her deep breath prepared him for her words, and herself for what she was about to confess.

"I know you think I'm being stupid, with the whole avoiding-the-talk crap, and acting like a jealous jerk." She started, her voice coming out in a croak. She hastily cleared it.

He said nothing, only waited for her to continue, though he did lift his eyes up to carefully watch her face.

"But I can't multi-task. I can't be the mother and a hormonal teenager at the same time. How do you expect me to cope? It's impossible to stay rational when you have two instincts trapped inside you like that."

Fang's mouth remained resolutely shut. He both thought she was wrong, and agreed that she had a point.

Thus, he remained silent. What was there to say?

"I mean, what the heck?!" her fingers closed around a small rock near the edge of the water. She let her wrist snap around, and the small missile went zipping across the surface of the lake, skimming the top once, twice, three times…seven…

It disappeared into the dark depths. Maybe a fish would swallow it.

"I can't…_be _with you. What would the others say? I have to take care of them, and I can't be distracted. Being at all…differently…_involved_ with you would take over the part of my brain that's supposed to watch out for them. And I feel like they wouldn't respect me as much. They're my first priority, and I don't want them to think that I'm slacking off."

He ceased to agree that she had a point, and now his silence was only an argumentative one.

"But I can't stand the fact that _you_'re off with whatever human air-headed girl you find, and I get to play mommy to the flock while you're off gallivanting—" her voice cut off in a growl. She glanced over at him to find his face completely impassive, except for the raised eyebrow that seemed to taunt her point.

"B.S." he finally muttered, his jaw locking. She could see the small muscle standing out in it, see that he was clenching his teeth.

"What?"

"Bull shit, Max!" he snapped, louder this time. "There are two options here. You mother the flock and manage by yourself, or you let me be your co-worker. The first option leaves me to do whatever I want, and if you say you don't want me to help you, then I can do whatever I want. Second option…well, if half 

our minds are occupied with each other, then the other halves would make up a whole, and since you said you can handle them by yourself with one brain fully occupied with looking out for them, that should work out just fine. And of course they wouldn't lose their respect for you! I'm as much part of the flock as they are. In fact, I bet they'd love it. You're always taking care of everyone else, it would be only right for me to take care of _you _once in a while. You're just scared of emotional responsibility that isn't maternal, that's all."

She didn't know how to counter his argument. Of course he was right. Fang very rarely made temperamental mistakes, and when he did, they had a certain good-hearted reasoning behind them. This didn't sound like a temperamental unreasonable accusation. It sounded like logic.

"Well, if you're gonna spring an ultimatum or whatever on me, at least give me a bit of time to choose." She said.

"Never said I wouldn't. I can deal with your having to figure things out. But I don't want you messing with my head just because you're in denial."

"No, we wouldn't want that." She muttered, and they sat in silence, watching the moon.

--

_**A/N: So, what do you think? I decided to just start it off with the Talk that was so necessary between those two, because I think Mr.Patterson didn't let them explain themselves enough. I suppose this was more of a prologue than really part of the story, though, so the tone is probably going to change a bit...**_

_**Don't forget me to give some R&R review love (though I also appreciate suggestions to make it better and any essentials that I may have gotten wrong in the story).**_

**_Cheers! _**

* * *


	2. The Nudge Spring Fashion Show

Though members of the flock had taken to dropping in on Dr. Martinez and Ella at least a few times a week, Max had insisted on making some kind of home that was exclusively for them. Having more strength than the average human adult and being able to fly definitely lightened their workload. Within a few weeks of careful planning with Fang and Dr. Martinez (who knew the area well and could supply any essentials), Max had come up with a construction plan for a large tree house that was to be built in one of the largest trees in the huge forests nearby. A large hill, almost a mountain, around twenty miles from Dr. Martinez' house, served to cast a shadow on the grove of larger trees at its base. They all grew to about a 130 feet with dense canopies, and branches at least a foot wide.

They chose the second tallest tree because it left ample space in its crown between the branches, and had so many leaves that they were almost completely invisible to anything above (except maybe inquisitive birds), and out of reach of anything on the ground. The tree house itself had a floor that stretched out over the immense branches of the tree, measuring approximately 400 square meters. The walls were little more than seven feet high, and a ceiling was mostly unnecessary. Just to be on the safe side, Max had asked Dr. Martinez to purchase several sheets of large, plastic canvas to stretch from the top of one wooden wall to the other, just in case rain penetrated through the leaves into the canopy. Not really trusting the amount of weight their makeshift home could handle, Max had left it up to them to turn their respective rooms into comfortable sleeping areas, and what resulted was a mess of sheets, pillows, blankets, duvets, thin mattresses, and anything else that could be put on a bed, strewn across the floors of the room, looking disturbingly like a slumber party gone very, very wrong.

Though the living space was positively gigantic for a tree house, it still only allowed for three rooms, and a very large kitchen (well, it had a Bunsen burner, table with chairs, and several cupboards in it). The room in the middle was Angel and Nudge's. Two layers of thick wood on either side separated it from Iggy, Gasman and Fang's room (the biggest of the three), and Max's room on the left. Hers was the only one that didn't look like someone had set a bomb off in a bed. She'd lined her walls with several duvets to allow both for some privacy against the noise of the others, and provide warmth, covered her thin mattresses with more duvets, and then arranged a sort of nest out of everything else to form a comfortable enough sleeping area. She left the few clothes she possessed in a small pile in the corner of the room, but otherwise didn't have many uses for it besides sleeping in.

Anything that required water in the flock's living conditions, be it washing dishes, washing themselves, bathroom requirements, or really anything else, was done by or in a small stream that they'd discovered in the forest. It sprang from a spring far up on the mountain, and flowed down the mountain only 500 feet from their tree. A small waterfall upstream had pounded a pool into the forest floor, which was perfect for bathing, though Max knew that, in winter, they were going to have to probably spend most of their time, if not just live, at Dr. Martinez' house.

When she and Fang returned from one of their late-night flights and chats at the lake (it was a couple of miles west of the tree house, easily reachable from both her mother and step-sister's house, and the flock's home), they found the lights peaking out of the leafy canopy, leaking out of the pane-less windows of the tree house.

"Ugh, I told Iggy to put them to bed." Max muttered as she landed on the small platform outside the opening of the house. Fang, landing lightly behind her on one of the branches (two people could not fit onto the platform), snickered, but quickly put on an expression of completely fake, totally ironic, and not-at-all believable innocence when Max turned around to glare at him.

Letting out a small sigh, she swept the curtain in the doorframe aside, and stepped into the lit-up kitchen, closely followed by a somewhat curious Fang. Iggy wasn't normally one to disobey orders, unless it was necessary (which it never was; Max usually knew what she was doing), Fang speculated.

The spectacle that awaited them inside was, to put it nicely, somewhat mind-jarring, if not downright blowing-the-fuses-in-someone's-brain. Nudge was seated cross-legged on the floor , a clipboard and pencil in her hand while yelling out, "Model #1, Outfit #35, Model #2, Outfit #36, Model #1, Outfit—"

The door to Angel and Nudge's bedroom opened and out came Angel, looking both frightening and strangely adorable dressed in a backless, flowery dress with a huge pink bow on the front, her wings halfway unfurled, her face so covered in make-up that not an inch of her skin was visible. She gave Max a lovely smile, then marched straight towards Nudge, who was chewing on the end of her pencil in artistic concentration, pivoted, then walked back to their bedroom.

She disappeared inside, and in the opening appeared Gazzy, although it took Fang and Max a moment to recognize him. When they did, their mouths simultaneously popped open in shock.

Gazzy took a second to pose in the doorframe, batted his eyelashes at them, then waddled towards Nudge in a bra-and-panty, black lace set that was not only a few sizes too large for him, but also, understandably, not fit for his body type. Somebody (probably he himself, knowing the Gasman) had parted his hair in a side-parting and colored his lips bright red. When he pivoted in front of Nudge and began his walk back to the bedroom, Max could see that the straps of the bra were specially fashioned to secure around the wings, making it especially dependable, if probably absolutely impossible to put on or remove without help. As if that wasn't enough of a daunting prospect to Max, who had a queasy feeling about the existence of this "outfit", the panties also turned to be the kind of the butt-floss variety. Thankfully, Gazzy wore a pair of underpants underneath, which just served to make the whole lingerie set look completely ridiculous.

"That one was for you, Max," Nudge announced with a smile as the Gasman disappeared in the bedroom, to be replaced with Angel, this time dressed as a guy, in a pair of faded jeans, a stylish white polo t-shirt, which didn't fit her at all, and a simple black leather jacket, all of which was too big for her. She had to heft the legs of the pants up with hands which were covered by the leather jacket, and did her best not to trip and fall flat on her face. Fortunately, Nudge hadn't forced her to wear matching shoes.

"I call that outfit." Fang said with a smirk, and finally noticed Iggy sitting by the wall on the right, a slightly despairing look in his blind eyes as he turned towards Fang's voice.

"It was for you anyway." Nudge mumbled, while staring with concentration at the notes on her clipboard.

Max, finally recovering from her shock at the underwear set, hid a small grin and put her fists on her hips in a threateningly mother-like pose, glaring at everyone in sight.

"Stop!" she yelled, as Gazzy stepped out after Angel had disappeared. "Have you all gone nuts?! It's past eleven o'clock, _way _past your bedtime, and you _know _that. Get out of those clothes and get ready for bed."

"Aw, come on, Max, just ten more minutes?" Nudge asked imploringly. Gazzy hastened to strike a girlish pose and bat his eyelashes, as if this could change her mind.

"No, clean up you three. And Iggy," she turned to him with a scowl that was evident in her voice, "Way to be a good babysitter and take control of the situation."

He, at least, had the decency to look ashamed.

Half-an-hour later, Iggy and Max sat at the kitchen table, finding comfort in chocolate pudding, which Iggy had prepared, and Fang was admiring himself in the long mirror hanging next to a cupboard on the wall.

"This doesn't look too bad." He finally judged, and turned around to peer over his shoulder at his back, which had a zipper right down his spine. The zipper let his wings pop open comfortably, and when he had to disguise himself as a human, it zipped the jacket shut again with the wings inside. The leather was padded well enough to hide the bulges of the wings, but it also made Fang look ridiculously buff, which he obviously enjoyed.

Not that Fang wasn't already ripped, but where his body was leaner, athletic and toned, he lacked the bulky muscle of a broad-shouldered Banana Republic model, which was what he looked like right then.

Max yawned and slid a finger around the bowl to get the rest of the pudding out.

"Good stuff," she murmured to Iggy, too tired to be quite coherent. "I think I'll turn in. Make sure you Mr. Self-Esteem So Low He Can't Bear To See His Reflection turn off all the lights before you go to bed."

"Hey," Fang protested as she stood up with another yawn.

"What, it's true." She said, giving him his own innocent expression back.

"Fine, I'll admit that I'm devastatingly sexy and can't stand not looking at myself every chance there is, just to see the gift to women God placed on this Earth, but that's not what I'm trying to keep you here for." He said, smirking. She raised an inquisitive eyebrow at him.

"You know Nudge had an outfit for you too." Fang said with a smug grin. "It'd be only right for you to model after having the honor of looking at this—"

The door to Max's room (she was the only one who had one) slammed shut, cutting him off mid-sentence.

Fang sighed a theatrical, long-suffering sigh, and fell into a seat next to Iggy, who appeared to be suffering from a severe case of hysterics.

"It was worth a try." He murmured his lament, as Iggy snickered into his pudding bowl. "Gimme some of that."

--

_**A/N: Alright, so I decided to put a pinch of humor into the story, though it's probably going to put a mix of action, angst, violence, and humor.**_

**_I hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget the Review Love!_**

_**Cheers!**_


	3. The Niagara Falls

"Max! Wake up!"

The pounding on her door (what an overly optimistic term…it was really more of a huge piece of thick bark she'd found on the forest floor and leaned into her doorframe. To open it, you merely had to take it out and put it somewhere else) lasted all of 9 milliseconds before it was shoved open and fell onto her bed, narrowly missing her feet, with a dull thump.

"What the—" she muttered, and blinked against the bright morning light and Gazzy's shadowed outline in the doorway.

"Get up, get up!" He jumped onto her mattress closely followed by Angel and pulled down her blankets.

"Jesus, what the heck are you people waking me up for? And give me back my blanket." The summer nights were too warm to use much sleepwear, so Max wore a pair of black bootie shorts that Ella had given her and a black tanktop that didn't even come close to covering her bellybutton. In fact, it was more of an elongated sports bra, but without the bra.

Which was why she needed her blanket back. Immediately. Especially when she heard footsteps and Iggy appeared in the doorway holding a frying pan that from which emanated the mouthwatering smell of scrambled eggs with fried tomatoes and onions.

"Sorry," he mumbled, looking ashamed of himself, "I didn't know they'd wake you up."

"Why exactly did they?" she snapped, while yanking her blanket out of Gazzy's hands and pulling it up to her chin. She considered covering her blushing face too, but then decided that she was angry at Izzy and covering her face wouldn't make her look intimidating enough.

"Well, I had this idea…" He gestured with the frying pan, and a brief fleeting feeling of worry shot through Max that he would spill the fried eggs on her mattress. If there was one thing she was incapable of, it was laundry.

"Freaking fabulous idea." Fang interrupted loudly and shoved Iggy to the side with a grin on his side. He was wearing the jeans Nudge had designed and the white polo shirt. Max noticed with a small amount of pleasant discomfort that it was extremely tight-fitting and extremely well cut.

The way they both leaned in the doorframe like they did, Max could tell that Iggy was still an inch or so taller than Fang. She tried to suppress a smirk, but failed.

"Why are you grinning?" Gazzy pouted. "We haven't even told you yet."

"She's comparing Iggy to Fang and realized that Iggy is taller." Angel announced casually. Max felt her smirk break into a fullblown grin.

Iggy couldn't help but snicker. Fang scowled.

"Size doesn't matter." he said, crossing his arms over his chest, making his biceps bulge. Max didn't let herself become distracted; she was too busy trying not to laugh at the ridiculous irony of what he'd just said. Nobody cared more than Fang about size. Angel was giggling. Gasman was trying to figure out why.

"Whatever," she chuckled. "What was the idea? Why am I awake?"

"Eh…eat breakfast first." Nudge suggested quickly and threw a glance at Iggy. She looked cautious.

--

Half-an-hour later, the flock sat around the dining table and stared at Max, who stared at Iggy. They'd looked silent and nervous all through breakfast, and she was starting to become really suspicious.

"Alright, spill it. What's going on?"

"Okay," Iggy took a deep breath. "We want to see the Niagara Falls."

He said it, short and to the point.

She took a moment to remember what the Niagara Falls were.

Then she took a moment to wonder if she was delusional and had just imagined the words that had come out of Iggy's mouth.

"Pardon me?"

"Well, Max, look at it this way," Gazzy spread his hands out in an innocent gesture, trying to look persuasive. "We have wings." She had the feeling somebody –Iggy or Fang –had told him this reason and he now thought he could persuade her with it, though he probably had no idea what it meant.

For a moment, nobody said anything while Max looked at him in incomprehension.

"And this relates to anything how…?"

"Well, we're not going to school are we? What does that leave us to do?" Fang leaned back in his chair, his black eyes serious. She hated how he managed to sprawl in that chair and still look so good, how her heart kicked up a gear just because he was holding her eyes with his like that.

He reasoned partly with his gaze as he continued, "We're not on the run anymore, and that leaves us two options; either go to school and try to live a normal life, or two, come up with a better option."

"And the Niagara Falls are the second option?"

"Indirectly, yes." His lips twitched into a smile at one corner. "We have wings, Max! And no parents to go to school, the government sure as hell won't force us. We can do whatever we want! Don't you want to see the world? It's open only to us. We're citizens of nowhere, barely considered human by the general populace, and formerly labeled as experimental matter, so no law applies to us. No law in the world."

It was strange to see Fang say this. Fang, the dark tall boy with wings, the sarcastic, cold one. The proud, but also teasing one. Fang who know had that spark in his eyes…

"I don't…" she didn't know what to say. "How did you come up with this?" she finally asked weakly.

He shrugged.

"I'd already had the vague idea. But Iggyy was reading a National Geographics magazine about elemental explosives to Gazzy the other day, and the article after the one he was reading was about the Niagara Falls. Angel said it was very pretty. Nudge said it would be so cool to go. And then Iggy made a suggestion."

"And when did this happen?" She didn't mean to make the words sound so sharp, but something in her twinged and hurt. They'd already thought this out, already yesterday while goofing around, modeling things, and she hadn't heard a word about it. She, the motherbird, leader of the flock! Where had she even been when they all sat together and read National Geographics?

Probably sitting by the lake and philosophizing pessimistically about her duties to the flock and the fact that not being with Fang when he was this close to her already was going to give her a complex.

"A few days ago." Iggy said vaguely, very quietly, as if he was scared that saying it louder would cause her to lose it.

"Wow." She didn't know what to say.

They watched her, she watched her heart.

"Excuse me for a moment." The tone was strangely formal. She left the table abruptly, disappeared in her room for a moment, then re-immerged having put on a proper shirt.

Nobody said anything as she walked out onto the little landing platform and jumped out of their sight. A moment later, they saw a streak of black, shoot through the air at her super speed, and she was gone.

"She doesn't want to go."Nudge fingered the tabletop dejectedly. Gazzy watched her chocolate colored fingers picking at the wood.

"I think we did something wrong." Iggy said hesitantly. Fang threw him a glance, then stood up. Without another word, he followed Max out the window.


	4. Telekinesis

Angel had been able to hear thoughts for a very long time. It was a strange art, this telekinesis, and she wasn't sure if she understood it.

The mind was such a jumble of the sense, emotions and words that Angel wasn't sure what she was receiving and what to judge on. Her current understanding of it was that it was that the mind was relatively uncontrolled. What mattered was what they put into words later. Feelings were too often irrational.

It had taken her a long time to realize this.

But she knew it, so she knew Max didn't really blame them for anything, it was more of a feeling of loss of something.

Max didn't know what.

Angel did.

It seemed like the individual only had so much access to his or her mind because nobody could concentrate on worrying about so many things at once. Angel, however, was always confronted with the various worries and more sub-conscious lines of thoughts, so it had been much easier to read Max's thoughts than Max herself could.

This Telekinesis thing really was quite strange.


End file.
